


Love Me Like Acacias

by Insomne



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, Language of Flowers, Light Angst, M/M, Really Light Angst, Trans Keith (Voltron), all my keiths are, i made the rules and thats that hes always trans to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 22:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomne/pseuds/Insomne
Summary: Working in New York, Keith takes notice of a small flower shop that always seems to be crowded, and the flowers that always end at his coffee shop doors.





	Love Me Like Acacias

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote,,,, 30 words ,, above the limit,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ok

     To live in New York City was a blessing by itself. To live in Little Italy, New York City, at the young age of twenty-four was a blessing hand-wrapped and kissed by God Himself and sent down from Heaven by angels in jeweled laurels and golden wings. 

  
  
  


But Keith didn’t believe in God. 

  
  
  


Being a young adult, fresh out of college with a Bachelor's Degree without a job to implement it in was not as uncommon as adults claimed it to be once you graduated. It wasn’t a shocker to Keith, seeing as what he held in his hands was a History degree, of all things. On that note, it wasn’t a shocker to  _ anyone,  _ really, when the universe took a look at Keith and drew up at least five neon signs pointing him to New York City, who stood strong like Achilles, hiding the weakness Keith would find only months into his stay.

  
  
  


To make it or break it in NYC without a job to exercise your degree in means to be a waiter while you look for a job to exercise your degree in. Even if it took months. Or something along those lines. Keith was aware of this when he applied as waiter in a cafe when his roommate, Allura, made a passing comment about a job opening at her workplace. He was aware that having a temporary job— when the word  _ temporary  _ was a bluntly undefined lapse of time— was bound to test his patience with humanity. He was aware that, while queer men and flirty women would tip well, minimum wage would not get him out of a one-bedroom apartment that housed four people. 

  
  
  


What he was not aware of, though, was the quaint little flower shop right across the street. 

  
  
  


The first time he noticed it was when Hunk, his co-worker and baker, brought in a small bouquet of gardenias for Shay, a waitress that had started shortly after Keith. The blush that adorned the tip of his ears complimented his complexion well, made him look saccharine and bashful and cute. Shay had rushed to set down her tray on an empty table to hold the flowers close to her nose and inhale the aroma so thick and sweet it reached even Keith, who stood behind the counter ten feet away. Shay pressed a hand to her chest in adoration when she turned to Hunk, and graced his lips with a kiss that made everyone in the cafe clap their hands in celebration. 

  
  
  


Keith wasn’t a stranger to spontaneous gifts of affection. He knew the history of most flowers solely from his History of Greece course, so when he hears Allura fawning over the meaning of gardenias and Hunk’s gift, the smile that curls on his lips is soft and genuine. What with “ _ you’re lovely”, “sweet love”,  _ and  _ “ecstasy” _ , it’s not a surprise Shay was quick to return Hunk’s feelings.

  
  
  


The second time he noticed it was three weeks later, when Allura’s boyfriend, Lance, visited her during her joint shift with Keith, hiding a large bouquet of lavender colored roses, gypsophila, and purple wax flowers behind his back. It was when Keith waved Allura off, promising to cover her shift while she peppered her boyfriend with kisses, that he searched for the meaning of the flowers in her bouquet. The violet roses he understood, having heard Lance’s version of his first meeting with Allura and remembering he’s tossed the phrase  _ “love at first sight”  _ around more times than anyone could count, and though Keith wouldn’t particularly picture Lance as  _ “pure of heart”  _ under any circumstance, he had to admit their relationship looked quite pure and unadulterated. But as he read the meaning of wax flowers, his gaze snapped up to the couple.

  
  
  


He wondered if either of them knew it meant marriage. 

  
  
  
  


With the way Lance was looking at Allura, he supposed at least one of them did. 

  
  
  


The third time he noticed the flower shop, he was on the first morning shift. 

  
  
  


     As someone who couldn’t pull his lips into an amiable smile so early in the day without a kickstart, he wasn’t very fond of patrons demanding coffee or big breakfasts. Arguably, his brain was barely active before 9am, nevertheless four hours before that. 

  
  
  


Pulling on his black apron, he wiped down tables groggily to get the place ready for business, and snuck glances at the flower shop across the street, which already sported a few customers waiting patiently by its entrance doors. 

  
  
  


Keith frowned at this. It wasn’t weird to stand and wait for a place to open at five in the morning, and he wasn’t one to judge, seeing as he’d waited in line for games or consoles hours before the sun even thought of rising, but for  _ flowers?  _ That was something he’s never seen a person do, unless it was Valentine’s. 

  
  
  


But today marked October 10th— today marked a month of working in Little Italy, and two of living in New York City. It was nowhere near Valentine’s, and Keith couldn’t think of any other event that required the purchase of so many flowers around this time, nor could he think of any flowers that could bloom at the beginning of autumn that were worthy of gifting a lover or friend. 

  
  
  


Throwing the cleaning rag over his shoulder, he leaned forward to inspect what the clients across the street could be waiting for. On his right, an old cock his manager, Coran, had hung on the wall chimed half past five. In front of him, inside the flower boutique, a petite girl with coral hair bounded forward with a bright smile and flipped the “ _ Sorry, We’re Closed!”  _ sign to  _ “Open for Business”.  _ Beside her, a taller woman with short purple hair opened the doors to let in the customers, though she paused when her eyes landed on a certain client, signaling him out by waving and nodding hello. 

  
  
  


When Keith’s eyes focused on the man she was greeting, he felt as though he needed to ask Allura for one of her lavender roses.

  
  
  


He smiled widely at the woman, dark hair flopping over his right eye, looking as if Eros commanded one of the Four Winds to style his hair with their power. He was a head taller than her, standing at, at least, six feet. For barely sixty degrees, he wore a dark blue peacoat, unbuttoned, that ended just above his knees. As he spoke with the woman, he reached up to push away his bangs from his face, and Keith felt his throat dry then and there. It’s not like he had the eyesight of an eagle, but as he stared at the straight nose and razor sharp jawline, his vision was good enough to catch the second the man noticed a stranger staring at him from a street away, dark eyes meeting his for a beat.

  
  
  


Keith almost tripped trying to make his way behind the counter to the cash register. 

  
  
  


As more of his co-workers arrived to start their shift, Keith stared at the machine, only looking up when people started pouring in, demanding coffee and food in all shapes, colors and sizes. When Keith, wincing, looked up at the flower shop, he saw the exact moment the man stepped out with a bouquet of peach blossoms. 

  
  
  


_ Love.  _

  
  
  


__ Keith tried not to sigh. 

  
  
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  


“Keith?” called Coran from the entrance, where he greeted clients hello. Keith leaned to the side, away from the line of people waiting to pay, and hummed his conscientious. “Would you mind switching with Shay, so she can man the register? I can see she’s getting a little overwhelmed with the amount of people she’s serving at once.” 

  
  
  


The good thing about having Coran as a manager was that he genuinely cared about his employees. Not only did he switch them around when he saw one task was too much for one person, but he mingled with the waiters and waitresses, as if he was a fellow minimum-wage earning co-worker instead of their superior . Plus, he told the strangest stories— that proved to be a hundred percent true, Keith’ll be damned— if you were with him cleaning the cafe before or after working hours. 

  
  
  


“Sure.” He called out. 

  
  
  


As he handed his last client’s change to them and excused himself from serving a petite older woman, he spared a glance at the flower shop, busy as ever. The two women were outside this time, the tallest of them talking to a party of four about the chrysanthemums she held delicately in her hands. The one with coral hair cradled three big bouquets in her arms and smiled brightly at her clients, standing close to her fellow florist. 

  
  
  


“Keith?” 

  
  
  


“Mm?” He turned to see Shay giving him an inquisitive look. Immediately, he felt the tips of his ears burn hot. Work. Waitering. Right.

 

 

Giving the shop one last look and noting the diverse number of people around it that did not hide the one man Keith hoped to see, he bit his lip and resumed his job, wishing to the unseen stars that he could meet him face-to-face and gather every detail of him and love them in secret. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Having done the job as well as one could hope a young adult at dawn could do, Keith landed himself another 5 o’clock shift. 

  
  
  


He stood with a 32oz. styrofoam cup in his hand and a lanyard with the shop key and quirky keychains Coran found on his road trips across the country in the other. The streets were crowded, though not as tight as they would be five hours from then. He rubbed the sleep and drowsiness from his left eye and jammed the golden key into the glass doors, twisting twice and pulling them off with a sigh. 

  
  
  


Five in the morning isn’t really an unreasonable hour to be awake, so long as you sleep healthily, so when footsteps and movement behind Keith’s half-awake body fought his attention, he wasn’t surprised people were already crossing streets and talking amicably amongst themselves and strangers. 

  
  
  


Keith looked up from his hunch at the coffee shop doors on reflex, and watched the young man standing beside him in a dark blue peacoat wait for the muddy yellow taxi to drive past so that he could cross the street. Sensing his presence, the man turned to look at Keith, his dark brown bangs flopping in the cold morning air. 

 

 

Their eyes meet.

  
  


Keith expected to find a blank expression, if not the idea that the man who made his heart race was looking at something behind Keith and not him. Instead, he met swirls of honey brown and cherry and black, and he understood why Dalí painted melting objects and angels when he was in love. He understood why people smiled when they remembered a song buried deep within the smallest crevices of their memory, and why Allura would laugh and snort at jokes she’d heard Lance say time and time again. Standing there with the man from the flower shop who held a bouquet of yellow acacias, Keith felt warmth overtake him like a sudden summer breeze that left you panting— he felt his chest as light as a feather and his stomach flip feistily like a spice you couldn’t get rid of no matter how much milk you chugged. 

  
  
  


The man smiled, his cheeks indenting immediately to fashion a pair of handsome dimples determined to make Keith’s life impossible. In turn, Keith nods in lieu of anything else, and rushes inside the safety of his shop. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


An hour later, once Keith’s wiped down tables and accommodated chairs and stools and center pieces and started the coffee machines and cooled the cartons of milk, he gave the place one final look before heading towards the big glass doors to flip the  _ Open for Business!  _ sign, and distantly notes that the flower shop’s has already turned. 

 

 

When he redirected his attention to twist the latch on his shop’s entrance, a yellow stem on the handle caught his eye. 

  
  


He stepped outside, holding the door open as he inspected the bouquet of yellow acacias now lodged between the glass and the handle. He wrapped his hand around the brown paper that protects them and pulled it out of its nook. There was no note attached to it, and what with the flower shop standing directly across from the coffee shop, it could’ve been anyone who left them.

  
  
  


But Keith lets his heart race like it’ll reach the moon and make it back in time for the day to start. 

  
  
  


Yellow acacias. 

  
  
  


_      Secret love. _

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

__

  
  
  
  
  


     After that morning, Keith offered his services for every 5 o’clock shift. 

  
  
  


     Coran stood quite impressed when he’d mumbled the suggestion, his ginger mustache twitching hilariously— a sight Keith would smile at, were it not for the butterflies dancing across his stomach, chest and spine. 

  
  
  


     After that morning, hooked between the handle and the glass door, waited a bouquet of flowers at six on the dot, patient for it’s one true friend. Keith always took them gently from their place, and was even softer as he arraigned them around the coffee shop that now bloomed in colorful agapanthuses, roses, altheas, mallows, hyacinths and roses. 

  
  
  


     And yet, with every new bouquet, Keith saw the man less and less. Sometimes he would spot him across the street, waving hello and spreading dimpled smiles to strangers and the two girls who owned the shop, dressed to the nines in his black dress pants and his dark blue peacoat. Sometimes he would wear bright red or burnt orange, melting the colors with his tan and his hair and the scent of Autumn spices.

  
  
  


     Sometimes he would see the woman with short purple hair call after him, hold his arm, and give him a little brown package. Sometimes he would hear the word  _ “Shiro” _ , and his navel would bloom adder’s tongue at the wonder if it was a name, a nickname, a pet name, a lover’s name, or more. 

  
  
  


     But he still had bouquets at his door, and the man still smiled at him and crinkled his eyes, and the Earth still spun around the Sun. 

  
  
  


     Until one day, it didn’t. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


     “Keith?” Shay asked with knitted brows. “Are you okay?”

  
  
  


     “Yeah,” the young man nodded, stacking plates and mugs and forks into his black tray. “Why do you ask?” 

  
  
  


     “You seem… I don’t know… sad.” 

  
  
  


     At this, Keith swallowed a lump building up in his throat. 

  
  
  


     Today, there were no flowers at the door, nor were there any yesterday, or the day before that. Keith had chucked it up to work, or maybe money, or perhaps a trip. 

  
  
  


     But days turned into months, and there were no more flowers at the door, and eventually, Keith stopped taking the morning shift. 

  
  
  


     Eventually, Keith got offered a job in an art gallery— a job that didn’t pay much more than the coffee shop, but enough to rent a place for himself, even if it was slightly shitty. 

  
  
  


     Months passed and Autumn left and Winter came to stay throughout Spring, persistent and cold through it’s colorful lights and cheerful music. Keith locked up the art gallery and went home every night until Summer knocked on New York’s door and suddenly everyone was wearing shorts and tank tops and sandals. 

  
  
  


     Keith still spoke to Coran and Allura and the whole lot. He visited and sat for vanilla coffees when it was cold and iced tea when it was hot. He stared across the window at the quaint flower shop brimming with patrons and he saw swirls of colors when the women placed bouquets of flowers that matched the seasons. And when Autumn came back around, Keith felt an itch in the space between his wrist as he saw his coffee shop void of flowers. 

  
  
  


     His next paycheck was spent on roses and hyacinths and adonises, and when he went to pay, the woman with short hair, Axca, smiled softly at the adonis, and Keith felt their heartstrings play the same tune. 

  
  
  


* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  


     After a year, you’d assume that feelings change— especially ones for a stranger you’d, at most, only said hello to— but love and infatuations are defined by the persistent flutter of one’s stomach and the constant thoughts that swirl around you head about them, and the fact that you crave to know more, more, more, until you could write their biography and  _ still  _ not know enough. 

  
  
  


     Yet Keith’s heart still ran up his throat and knocked itself against the back of his teeth when, perched on a cushioned stool, talking to Allura, the bell by the glass doors chime and the man from the flower shop walks in. 

  
  
  


     His hair is gray, and over his nose rests a thick scar a shade darker than his tan, and his right arm is missing, but Keith cannot pay attention to any of these things when his body threatens to melt in his chair, worse so when the man makes his way directly to him.

  
  
  


     “Hi.” He says, almost breathlessly, and before Keith can reply, his wind-chapped lips part, and he speaks once more. “Maybe you don’t remember me, but last year, I stuck bouquets by the door before you opened this shop.” 

  
  
  
  


     Around him, most of the staff quits down to listen to what the man has to say— to what  _ Keith  _ has to say to him— but he’s stuck on the fact that this man ever thought his heart would forget him. 

  
  
  


     Until then, Keith had sworn that a pink sky was his favorite sight; that blush wine and iridescent glass and a lover’s lips at your neck was the best feeling he could have, but as his heart beats in time with the breathless words words the man says and the old grandfather clock on the wall, Keith swears to the stars that the bouquet of ambrosias and white roses hidden behind the man’s back is the best he’ll ever see.

  
  
  


_      Will you return my love? _

  
  
  


     “I’m Shiro,” the man gulps down his nerves. “By the way.” 

  
  
  


     Keith smiles softly, and extends a hand to hold the bouquet, and says, “I’m Keith.”

**Author's Note:**

> written to apply for a zine, so it was cut short. shiro had bouquets for his ex, they broke up, he got deployed to war, and then he came back after honorable discharge to find keith in the same shop he always saw him in. 
> 
> find me on twitter @ shibarikeith


End file.
